Apple’s medication feature is a step in the right direction

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Apple isn't inventing anything new with its medication tracking feature for iPhone and Apple watch There are lots of apps on the market that let people know when they need to take their medication.

One of the biggest problems in healthcare is trying to get people to take their drugs regularly. The healthcare system spends hundreds of billions of dollars a year on non-adherence to medication. Even though the tool doesn't have everything experts want, a tech company like Apple entering the ring could be a helpful development.

Heldenbrand is an associate professor of pharmacy practice at the University of Arkansas.

Users can input a list of the drugs they take and set a reminder schedule for them. People get an alert on their phone when they take a medicine. They can hit either "taken" or "skipped" to record the dose. How frequently a user takes their medication will be tracked by the Health app.

Research shows that these types of nudging can improve medication adherence. Mary de Vera is an associate professor at the University of British Columbia who studies medication adherence. It isn't helpful for other groups if someone isn't taking medication because they don't understand why it's needed

The Health app will allow people who use the medication app to share their history with family and friends. Heldenbrand says that it's useful information to know how patients are taking their medication. One-sided communication around medication has historically been less successful than a system where doctors can write back. Positive feedback loops tend to work better for nudges.

Offering up a reminder feature might not be enough to change things. A patient might have a high internal motivation to use something like this and interact with it, but do they keep using it and do it help them take their medication? Heldenbrand says that the adherence needle is a difficult one to use.

This feature is more accessible for iPhone users. If they already use the Health app, users wouldn't have to figure out how to set up a separate program. Users aren't sending their health data to another third party because it's in the existing Appleecosystem A layer of protection for patients is provided by that.

A tech giant like Apple might be good for getting people to keep taking their medicine because it gives them more stability. It is like a long game when we talk about medication adherence. It is for some patients. You need a long game player.

A medication feature on the Health app allows people and their doctors to see how medication adherence is related to changes in sleep, exercise, and heart rhythm. Researchers can use those relationships to look at big- picture trends. There is data to show that some people take their medication more frequently when they use an app, but it is not clear if that improves their health. Right now, that is the million dollar question.

It would require Apple to either share information with researchers or conduct their own studies to answer some of the questions. There might be a lot to learn if they do. De Vera thinks it would be very rich. It would lead to a better understanding of how patients take their medication.